Is the new Sony format good or bad?

[Squirsier]

It's a good move Sony made ; one not so far associated with how they dealt with the mp3 format. They took long to accept it, and thus let other companies get ahead in that department.

Sony is trying to avoid that same mistake with eBooks by switching to a format most, if not all (Amazon, we're looking at you) supports. The theory being that eBooks you purchase from ANY website in ePub format would work on the Sony, but not everyone follows the same DRM scheme (B&N, we're looking at you).

Originally Posted by Amalthia

I think epub looks like crap compared to LRF because in epub the page numbers are displayed on the side margin which interfers with the text on the screen. And there is no text justification.

Now, it depends. Generally, I see the switch to ePub as a good thing. However, as was the case with the BBeB format, where all the eBooks I would buy from Sony had the same layout and format, the ePub eBooks are all over the place. No margins, large margins and what looks like different fonts. There's no standard at all on how, in the end, ePub "looks", it seems.

Which is why I say that the page numbers displayed on the side margin depends on the eBook ; one that has no margin will interfere, one that has large ones won't... No standard.

[kennyc]

The epub format is a standard shared format, with books available from many stores not just Sony, as well as from google books, project gutenberg also supports checkouts from libraries.

It's a move in the right direction.

oh and as far as full justification, I don't want that anyway. If they add it I'm hoping that it will be user selectable.

[lilac_jive]

I have to say, I'm half tempted to learn how to strip the ePub DRM so I can turn it into LRX. I don't hate ePub, and see the good things about it's openness. But I really don't like the pages, I miss the way the LRX/LRF books recalibrate the page numbers. I also really miss the full justification, and also the fonts are too small, so I have to zoom to medium.

The font isn't bad though.

[Squirsier]

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

I have to say, I'm half tempted to learn how to strip the ePub DRM so I can turn it into LRX. I don't hate ePub, and see the good things about it's openness. But I really don't like the pages, I miss the way the LRX/LRF books recalibrate the page numbers. I also really miss the full justification, and also the fonts are too small, so I have to zoom to medium.

The font isn't bad though.

I'd like to do the same for the time being, or at least be able to change the margin. The Alchemyst, by Michael Scott has about 5 words per sentence in medium font (the small being TOO small), which is ridiculous, because it has these HUGE margins (bigger than the LRF format used to have).

Under the Dome by Stephen King has no real left margin but a big right margin... Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik has almost no margin (which looks really good).

I know this isn't Sony's fault, but the publishers need to settle on a right layout for ePub...

[Bremen Cole]

I like epub, and it is the Sony readers more open format that pushed me to by Sony rather than Kindle/Nook. As someone else said epub is very Calibre friendly, and that is important to me as well. The LRF is wonderful (for example the free ones available here at MobileRead) but is readable only on the Sony. LRX of course is DRM so it is of Satan.

And yes, it is nice to tear the DRM out of epub

[LDBoblo]

I've been growing weary of taking epubs and other inferior files and converting them to PDF so they are more pleasant, especially as it takes a lot of manual interference with more complex pages.

However, the end result is usually worth it to me. I can't stand reading ePubs or LRFs on my Sony...Just swap the fonts with Comic Sans (I know some on these fora have already done that). Perhaps I'm a heartless child-hater, but I don't really want to spend $10 on a book that looks like it was typeset by a kindergarten student in FrontPage Express.

Perhaps in the future they won't look like such a joke, and I'll be able to download tolerable ePubs from conventional stores without all the extra hassle of making the books readable.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

I have to say, I'm half tempted to learn how to strip the ePub DRM so I can turn it into LRX.

Sorry? You want to remove ePub DRM, and then re-add Sony's DRM? WHY? Why not just leave it as a DRM-free ePub, or as a DRM-free LRF file? Why do you want to add Sony's DRM to it and create an LRX file?

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Sorry? You want to remove ePub DRM, and then re-add Sony's DRM? WHY? Why not just leave it as a DRM-free ePub, or as a DRM-free LRF file? Why do you want to add Sony's DRM to it and create an LRX file?

They were referring to LRF, since the subject was the formatting. I'm sure the LRX thing was just a cognitive slip.

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Sorry? You want to remove ePub DRM, and then re-add Sony's DRM? WHY? Why not just leave it as a DRM-free ePub, or as a DRM-free LRF file? Why do you want to add Sony's DRM to it and create an LRX file?

I just mistyped, silly. I know the difference Although one thing I would have to do is find out how to get the LRX layout, I do like that the best.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

I've been growing weary of taking epubs and other inferior files and converting them to PDF so they are more pleasant, especially as it takes a lot of manual interference with more complex pages.

However, the end result is usually worth it to me. I can't stand reading ePubs or LRFs on my Sony...Just swap the fonts with Comic Sans (I know some on these fora have already done that). Perhaps I'm a heartless child-hater, but I don't really want to spend $10 on a book that looks like it was typeset by a kindergarten student in FrontPage Express.

Perhaps in the future they won't look like such a joke, and I'll be able to download tolerable ePubs from conventional stores without all the extra hassle of making the books readable.

To each his own I guess, but pdfs are a pita as far as I'm concerned. I don't read a book to admire it's appearance, but for the story.

I've yet to see one(epub) that was unreadable, but have seen pdfs that were. YMMV.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I've yet to see one(epub) that was unreadable, but have seen pdfs that were. YMMV.

Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" was pretty close. It had huge margins, leaving just a narrow column of text down the centre. Of course, that's the publisher's fault - it's nothing to do with the ePub format.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" was pretty close. It had huge margins, leaving just a narrow column of text down the centre. Of course, that's the publisher's fault - it's nothing to do with the ePub format.

Well yeah. I'm sure it could be annoying or even "unreadable" - but just my experience is that I've not had epub issues, but have definitely had pdf issues - enough so that it was annoying enough for me to dump it and buy the paper book.

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Well yeah. I'm sure it could be annoying or even "unreadable" - but just my experience is that I've not had epub issues, but have definitely had pdf issues - enough so that it was annoying enough for me to dump it and buy the paper book.

Oh I certainly wouldn't buy PDFs unless they were done in the right size range with competent formatting. Even the ePubs that are available could be improved significantly, and I'm often reluctant to pay paper book prices for ebooks that look like they were made by an untrained and untalented child.

I just got that free copy of Pratchett's Unseen Academicals as an ePub and the first thing I did was remove the big margins (which weren't set in the CSS but in a page-template.xpgt file), which did make it much more manageable...though if I'm going to dig through the CSS to reformat to make it a little more pleasant, I may as well go a bit further and give myself a PDF I like with actual footnotes instead of linked endnote-style files, and proper justification and hyphenation, and no silly margin page numbers, along with nicer fonts and a bit better kerning (not that it's such a huge deal on these screens...)

If ePub were more competently displayed and executed on the Sony Readers, I'm sure I would tolerate them much better and wouldn't avoid them completely as I do now. I'd still make better PDFs of my favorites, but I wouldn't be nearly so offended by normal store offerings.